


freely, as men strive for right

by bixgirl1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (likedeathorwhateverbutitdoesntlastIswear), Art Prompt Fic, Auror Harry, But also, Dirty Talk, EWE, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Sex, Established Relationship, Explicit Sex, First Times, Friends to Lovers, Gift Fic, Healer Draco, Impulsive Marriage, King's Cross, M/M, Post Hogwarts, Relationship Issues, Relationship Study, Some angst, Switching, UST, emotional tension, please see author's notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:48:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bixgirl1/pseuds/bixgirl1
Summary: How can Harry love a man like Draco Malfoy?If only Draco would let him count the ways.(Sometimes, a happily-ever-after takes a bit longer than you expect.)
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 165
Kudos: 1863





	freely, as men strive for right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slytherco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherco/gifts).



> For slytherco's utterly _gorgeous_ [art prompt](https://slytherco.tumblr.com/post/620836402385567744/deadlines-are-killing-me-so-i-drew-some-morning), which grabbed me with both hands and practically sang [Sonnet 43](https://poets.org/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43), from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, into my ear. 
> 
> As interpretations of that poem go, this is probably the loosest you'll ever find. Quite honestly, it's more the examination of a relationship, because love doesn't automatically make everything simple, and especially not when the people in it approach things as differently as Harry and Draco do — but the result can be so worth the effort (and I'm pretty sure Harry and Draco think so, too). I hope you like this. <3
> 
> _Many_ thanks to [tackytiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/works), who has so much going on in her life, but who unfailingly lent her support as a beta when I needed one, and whose talented eye improved this fic immeasurably. I literally cannot thank you enough, sweets. Any mistakes are all me. lol. <3333
> 
> And I need to extend huge, undying thanks as well to [artichaud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artichaud/pseuds/artichaud) as well. At one point on my, oh, idk, ninth version of this fic (y'all are getting number 14, I think lol), I completely stalled out on One. Single. Freaking. Line. I loved it, and wanted it so much that I couldn't bring myself to cut it, but couldn't decide whether if the rhythm read the way I wanted, or if it existed only my head. After freaking for basically two days, I did what any rational person would do and contacted a complete stranger who had recently blessed me with a couple of podfics of my fics — s e r i o u s l y, [go check out her podfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artichaud/pseuds/artichaud) because they're all _so good_ — and asked if she'd be willing to read a clip of my WIP so I could hear how it sounded. It's no exaggeration to say that her generosity saved this fic, and I am disgustingly grateful. <333

_**Now:**_

First posed two years into their relationship, the questions have become a yearly staple since — and they’re never any less galling.

Without fail, at least one journalist shouts them, as though no one has ever asked before. As though Harry hasn’t paired snarled ‘fuck off’s with two demonstratively flipped fingers in their direction on countless occasions, twelve years running. 

Harry knows by now to expect them, yet he can’t stop himself from crushing the newspaper in his hands after reading its headline. He can’t keep looking at it, has never seen one of its nature; the paps only ever allude to Harry’s anger and profanities, and dodge disappointingly around the snark they’re fed. 

_What are you doing with Harry Potter?_ they like to shout. _What is he doing with you?_

_Well, I’m a bit of a size queen,_ remains Harry’s favourite, out of all of Draco’s drawled responses — the very first. _And not everyone can deepthroat a cock the size of his._

They’d got drunk on cheap wine the night he’d said it, laughing like lunatics, and celebrated their second anniversary by making love with the windows thrown wide open for once, so Draco could prove himself an honest man to anyone listening. 

Tracked down at breakfast by the paps who demanded an answer from Harry, and then Draco again, however, Draco’s smirk had faded: _How? Harry, how could you ever love a man like him? Draco! Draco! How can he love a man like you?_

It’s insulting. Foul. And yet Draco’s never once let Harry respond; or rather, their agreement constrains his desire to — Draco’s wordless admonishments, his lip caught between his teeth when he glances at Harry’s face. Positive people read something in his silence that doesn’t exist, Harry wants to clean the question from his skin every time he hears it.

How can he love a man like Draco Malfoy?.

Merlin to Christ. If only Draco would let him count the ways.

*

_**Then:**_

Draco saved Harry’s life on no fewer than four occasions before Harry died for the second time. Harry thought it ironic that his death happened to coincide with his realisation of Draco's feelings for him.

He felt a bit idiotic for not having realised sooner, though it did seem to fit the natural progression of their relationship up to that point: wary, unspoken allies after the first time Harry entered his medical care, both of them in training and determined to remain professional; tentative friends after the second when Harry’s slashed femoral artery dictated a deeper intimacy of care than his concussion had, and they were forced to choose between awkward and total silence or learning how to soften their interactions with one another. 

There was a lag to Harry’s understanding of each episode, and it took him weeks to understand why he hadn’t simply requested a different Healer in the first case, and days, in the second, to figure out why his response to Draco’s stilted examination was a snort and a warning that Draco should take the hospital’s freezing temperatures into account when writing up his notes. Draco’s arch drawl — _Seems I’m not going to be able to shake you, am I, Potter? Punctured lung this time, is it? Well, at least that ought to keep you quiet._ — when Harry panted out a hello on the third occasion earned him an invitation to drinks upon Harry’s recovery, and by the time Draco treated him for a curse that was leeching all of Harry’s blood to his head, Harry didn’t even pause at Draco’s teasing threat to sell photographs to the papers. 

But despite the similar links Harry could track over the course of their friendship, the realisation that Draco loved him hit him differently — as a deeply-embedded awareness Harry thought he might have known forever. As the instantaneous comprehension of a whole universe he’d happened upon without looking for it. Being in that space woke up something inside of Harry, and it felt like waking up to _everything._

The instance preceding his revelation was foggy in his rush towards death, but Harry did remember that, at first, there’d only been Ron: his exhausted embrace, dragging, rambling reassurances, a scuffle nearby, a snarled “Get your bloody intern hands away from him or I’ll hex you, what are you, sixteen? Where the fuck is—” and a bellowed, “ _MALFOY!_ Stop it! _DRACO MALFOY!_ ” Other things filtered in, then: a yelp, a swish of fabric, the clipped tread of Draco’s footsteps. The posh, irritated tones of Draco’s accent persuaded Harry a little closer to the surface.

“I’m not your _dog_ , Weasley, and after the shit morning I’ve had, this had better— _Potter!_ ” he heard Draco say. Then there were four hands on him rather than two, and Ron’s panicked, “I don’t _know_ , blue maybe, no, dark, or purple, there were so many— I don’t _know_ I didn’t _see!_ ”, to Draco’s rattled-off questions, and Ron’s fierce rejection of Draco’s orders to leave the room, and the pained, choking sound Ron made when a strange, measured flatness crept into Draco’s voice as he said, “Go tell your wife and bring her back with you, he should have his family near him if— Ron. Get Hermione.”

Harry could sense Draco’s magic swirling around him as he spoke; it intensified after the crack of Apparition sounded. 

“Potter, oh Salazar, what did you—? I need more hands! Someone alert the Surgical Ward: male patient, 26, hit with unknown cursefire, possibly blue or purple in colour, heavy damage to the abdomen, stomach and, and, Salazar, and— Stomach and liver visibly perforated, s-severe blood loss. Get me some Vamp Replenishers, O-Neg, _now_! Oh my God,” Harry heard Draco say, “Oh my God.” His voice held none of the cool impartiality Harry knew to expect when other people were around during his visits to the trauma ward, none of the wry insults Harry looked forward to in his follow-up appointments. The graceful efficiency of Draco’s Healer’s hands had vanished; his fingers felt cold, and trembled against Harry’s face. “Potter, can you hear me? Potter? Oh God, oh _shit_ please, Harry—”

Someone else spoke. “Fuck. Is that Harry Potter?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Draco said furiously, “but he won’t be for long unless you _get your useless arses in gear._ Can’t you see he’s bleeding out!”

Shuffling movement and more voices, some of them yelling over each other. Draco’s wandtip skittered, warm and friendly, against Harry’s temple and then down the line of his chest before fading. A Numbing spell, Harry thought, and tried to tell Draco he didn’t need one — everything was already pretty numb, rather cosy and warm, actually — but couldn’t make his mouth work. Then the press of lips warmed the shell of his ear, and Draco spoke again, low and tight: “Please. _Please._ Harry, please don’t make me hate you again, oh God, _please_ , I—”

Draco’s voice cracked; he pulled away. Harry forced his eyes open and got to witness the storm of anxiety in Draco’s gaze, the deterioration of his ever-present composure, as Draco snapped off orders, then elbowed aside his supervisor when the man tried to replace Draco’s position at his shoulder.

_Oh_ , Harry thought. _Oh._

Impossible to keep his eyes open. Harry closed them, disappointed, certain there was so much more to that thought. A hand gripped his, squeezed it firmly. Draco’s, he thought. Harry wanted to look, wanted the chance to figure out what he was missing, but didn’t have time. 

The sounds of the room grew muffled, and the whistle of a train nearing grew clearer. Harry held onto the hand in his, and rattled out a final breath, his vision fading white.

When he opened his eyes again, he hurt _everywhere_ : stomach and back, stomach and legs, stomach and head and throat. Ron sat in a chair at the far end of the room next to Hermione. His face and hands were still splotched with soot and grime from the fight, his blood-stained robes crumpled in his lap. He was resting his cheek atop Hermione’s head, tipped familiarly on his shoulder; without his glasses, Harry couldn’t make out their features, but he felt fairly certain they were both asleep. He turned his head carefully. 

Draco sat next to him, had helped himself to the edge of Harry’s pillow and was resting at an awkward sideways angle. His eyes were closed, his forehead creased even in his doze. The strained calligraphy of grief pulled his lips in an elegant downward slope, and Harry got it, then. Remembered — what had happened, and where he’d been, and everything he’d learned. He went breathless for a moment. He didn’t know how such a big thing could be so simple, or how it was possible not to have noticed a thing so big. He exhaled, which hurt, and inhaled again, which hurt even worse. 

“Malfoy?” It came out a whisper. That hurt, too. 

Draco’s head snapped up, his focus immediate and alert. He gazed searchingly at Harry for what seemed a long time, radiating more agony than Harry was in. Then Draco wobbled a tight, disbelieving shake of his head, and leaned in, and kissed him. The kiss felt like it went on and on, the way Draco’s gaze had, soft and shivering and excruciatingly good, spiralling Harry’s heart to reaches he’d not known existed inside himself. Harry contributed to it as well as he could, but when Draco pulled away, his face was twisted, crumpled, and his eyes were glassy with tears. Staring at Harry, he blinked several times and schooled his expression — not very well, but enough to fool anyone who didn’t know what Harry finally did. 

“I’m—” Draco licked his lips. “Potter, I—” He hovered strangely hesitant hands over Harry, then grabbed his wand. Harry managed not to cry out during the diagnostic, managed to stay still for it. Draco checked something Harry couldn’t see, but saw the grimace that crossed Draco’s face. “Here, let me just…” 

The spell he cast didn’t decrease Harry’s pain much but swamped him with a soothing sort of exhaustion, and Harry sighed. Through lowered lashes, he watched the spiky set of Draco’s shoulders settle.

“The best anesthetic spells cause a contradictory reaction to the potions in your system,” Draco murmured, “but that should help a little.” He fidgeted with his wand for a moment. Turned and set it aside. “You’re, um. Going to be fine, now that you— You’ll be fine,” he said, and with a laboured smile added, “though as your Healer, I want to unequivocally recommend that you find other ways to get your name in the papers; this was rather dramatic, even for you.” 

“Malfoy,” Harry said again, stiffly opening his hand. _Draco_ he thought. Why were they still using each other’s last names?

“No, don’t move,” Draco said, stilling Harry’s hand with his own. Harry sighed and closed his fingers around it. Tried to smile when Draco’s eyes widened, when he inhaled sharply. “Um. Do you want—? I can send for ice chips if you’re— Or, or another blanket.” He sent a glance in Ron and Hermione’s direction, then cleared his throat quietly. “I can— I’ll— If you want, I’ll—”

“Yes,” Harry whispered, to everything, and slipped back into sleep.

*

“Stop looking at me like that,” Draco said under his breath at Harry’s Release to Work checkup.

Since Harry hadn’t confronted Draco about avoiding him for almost a month, and Draco had barely met his eyes during the exam, that seemed more than a little unwarranted. “How am I looking at you?” 

Draco’s voice remained low, though they were the only people in the exam room. “I apologise, all right?” Scribbling his signature, he tore the parchment from his clipboard, and handed it over. “It was a stupid impluse, and I regret doing it. I’d hoped you wouldn’t remember, but— It won’t happen again, okay?”

“If that’s what you really want,” Harry said, swallowing hard. He aimed for a bit of levity. “I mean, I thought it was pretty good, but I was sort of out of it. I promise to improve, though, if you’re willing to give me another go. Maybe it’s different with men.”

Draco paused, his back to Harry, his hand clenching and unclenching on the doorknob. He pivoted back around on the ball of his polished Oxfords to look at Harry; his face was unreadable for what seemed like a long time, and then he lifted his hand to press his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids, and laughed, a little brokenly. Massaging his eyes, he said, “Potter, are you saying— That is, am I meant to understand that you’re— that you like, are attracted to—”

“Men, yeah. Well, not all of them, obviously but, uh. You, definitely,” Harry said, shifting from foot to foot and working overtime to hold onto his smile. Draco removed his fingers from his eyes and stared blankly at him. Harry shrugged and kept talking, almost compulsively. “I haven’t been hiding it or anything. I just never got on well enough with any of the guys I found fit to want to, ah, pursue anything. But I would, with you. It’s okay if you don’t want to risk it, there are plenty of reasons why you might not, but I’ve been thinking about it, a lot, and, so… Yeah,” he added, in rather pathetic summation. 

“Potter.” Draco said his name weakly, his shoulders leaned against the door. 

He’d left his ugly Healer robes open that morning, but his clothes under them were well-tailored — snugly-fit trousers and a waistcoat, both in a darker shade of grey than his eyes. Harry saw his prick twitch through the expensive material; riveted, he watched it lengthen a bit against Draco’s thigh. He took a step closer without thinking.

Draco warded him off with a palm lifted outward, his long fingers splayed. Harry glanced up, saw Draco’s throat work silently above the knot in his cherry red tie.

“I’m at work,” he said. But he sounded unsure, and bit his lip. Harry took another step. Draco inhaled sharply and shook his head; his whole face had turned pink in a matter of seconds. Harry liked how it looked, and continued closer, pausing only when Draco’s palm settled on his chest. Draco curled his fingers slightly, digging into the cotton of Harry’s t-shirt. “I-I’d get fired,” he said.

Harry stopped. Draco’s hand lingered warm over Harry’s heart, then fell away. 

“I— I’ve got to think.” He scrambled for the doorknob next to his hip, said, “I’ll Owl you,” and then scarpered from the exam room like a guilty man from a crime scene. 

Harry went home, determined to let him think. He expected several more weeks to pass before Draco came to any conclusions; since Hogwarts, Draco had become something of a compulsive over-thinker regarding significant decisions he had to make. Understanding that was the only thing that had kept Harry from tearing his hair out after waking up with Draco gone from his bedside. But Draco, possibly defending his title as the Most Contrary Arsehole Ever, sent an Owl later that night: _Malfoy, E14 ⅓ MoM9, Whitehall Road_ , he wrote, as though Harry might have forgotten the time Draco got so drunk Harry had to had to Side-Along him home. _Come over for a drink. —D.M._ Harry Floo-d over. 

Pulse thrown into overdrive once there, Harry pretended not to notice Draco on the sofa and took his time looking around. Draco’s flat resembled his — smallish and cosy, cluttered in the same manner of most people who spent the majority of their waking hours at work. Framed photographs lined the mantlepiece; a Wireless was half-hidden by stacks of files on the desk in the corner; a row of unwatered herbs rested upon the ledge of one window. One of Draco’s living room walls had a built-in shelf crammed with books, Medical texts, mostly. Some fiction, several true crime novels. 

“I like true crime, too,” Harry said, pointing. “I’ve got that one.”

“Have you changed your mind?” Draco asked levelly. 

Harry looked at him. Draco’s sofa took up the majority of the space in the room, and Draco sat in the centre of it, arms stretched out lazy over its back, legs crossed. He had a glass of whiskey in each hand, had taken off his work robes and shoes. The strange tenderness of his black-socked feet captured Harry’s attention for several seconds; they were long, narrow, broader near Draco’s toes. Harry thought of peeling off his socks to reveal pale skin, considered what it would be like to run the blunt edge of his thumbnail along the high arches of Draco’s feet — if it would make Draco laugh or squirm or moan. Balling his hands against the urge to immediately find out, Harry pulled his gaze up. Paused before he reached Draco’s face. He studied the loosened knot of Draco’s tie and took a breath, overwhelmed with the sudden, dizzy desire to wrap that bright red blade of silk around his hand.

“Not remotely.”

“Harry,” Draco said. The sheer amount of _want_ he injected into Harry’s name rocked Harry back; his cock throbbed damp, aching. Draco laughed the way he did when he was trying to sound nonchalant, and might have pulled it off if his voice hadn’t been shaking. “I thought we could… I poured… drinks.” He held them up to demonstrate. Evidence, Harry supposed, that Draco had no specific expectations. 

“I don’t want one, thanks.” 

Draco inhaled slowly, and Harry left the bookshelf to sit next to him. He took both drinks from Draco’s hands and set one on a side table, then hesitated.

“Do you need yours?”

Draco shook his head. Harry put the other drink down and turned back to pluck at Draco’s tie, slipping it free from his waistcoat; he curled it around his hand — once, twice — and scooted closer. Closer still, when that wasn’t enough, crowding Draco into his sofa cushions. Stretching out half on top of him, pushing into his space. Draco’s breath sped up, and he gifted Harry with a shift of his leg that set Harry in the cradle between his long, trousered thighs. Harry could feel the hard length of Draco’s prick nudging his hip. Mouths nearly touching, Harry met Draco’s eyes, swallowed, and said, “I’ve got too many ideas and zero experience.”

“Tell me your ideas,” Draco murmured, the brush of his lips just under Harry’s coaxing another excited twitch from Harry’s cock, “and I’ll show you how to do them to me.” 

Shuddering, Harry kissed him, gripping Draco’s tie, his collar, the underside of his knee. Draco’s hands were just as fierce, on Harry’s face, on the back of his neck, in his hair. Both of them dwelling long after they were beyond ready to proceed to other activities — in the alarming hunger that only seemed to grow with each kiss, and in the absurd sense of satiation. 

“Tell me,” Draco said into his mouth, rolling his hips against Harry’s, his ankles hooked around Harry’s thighs. He slid his hands hot up the back of Harry’s shirt, fingers clenching when Harry sucked at his lower lip. “Tell me the first way you want me,” he said, and Harry was so hard he had to yank out of their kiss to pant his answer against Draco’s cheek for fear he’d come. He snatched a reply from the million warring desires in his head and asked for it, smiling when Draco chuckled, warm and easy and said “Yes. Fuck. I can do that.”

He could do everything, it felt like, and began by crouching naked over Harry on the sofa to suck him slow and deep — displaying his own lithe body just right so Harry could watch him wank himself off, a sly smile shaping his lips around the girth of Harry’s cock. Amenable to Harry’s questions, in his bed he gasped filthy instructions into Harry’s ear about how he best liked to be fingered; he was generous with his moans when Harry sank his cock inside deep; he muttered guidance and praise as Harry followed up his own climax by sliding down Draco’s body and taking Draco’s prick in his mouth, his own softening erection already twitching once more, responsive to any indication of Draco’s pleasure. 

Drunk with lust, he let Draco urge him back up before Draco had come, and pushed back into him, slower and harder, cracking the plaster of Draco’s wall with the headboard from the force of his thrusts. He curled his fist around Draco’s rigid, spit-wet cock and timed his pulls to the beat of their fuck, gasping when Draco finally came with long, messy spurts between them. Writhing and trembling, Draco cursed and locked his thighs desperately around Harry’s hips when Harry thought to slow. He panted out, “ _Don’t stop,_ ” and “ _Yes, right there,_ ” and “ _Harder_ , fuck me harder, oh my God I think I— Harry, _do not stop for the love of—_ ” so Harry pounded into him, barrelling towards his third orgasm as Draco’s second seemed to go on and on with what felt like endless spasms around Harry’s cock. 

They dozed. Woke to bathe. Though Draco must’ve been sore, he responded to Harry’s flushed query with a wicked smile and a prompt swish through the water to turn onto his knees. Bent over the lip of the bath, Draco held himself open and twisted to look over his shoulder. His eyes darkened at Harry’s expression, and in a voice thick with arousal, he said, “There’s no way even you could fuck this one up, Potter, have at it,” words stuttering into a gasp when Harry swooped to lick over his hole. 

Draco’s skin still held traces of the soap Harry had used to clean him, and of Harry too, and as Harry ate him with sloppy, earnest licks and sucks, as he burrowed his tongue into Draco and felt Draco’s hand clench in his hair, he thought he’d never tasted anything so good; he thought he wanted taste Draco forever. He pulled back with a light nip over Draco’s fluttering rim to say something to that effect, but Draco snarled and jerked Harry’s head in again, wet and gorgeous and everywhere savage, and Harry lost the thought and his breath all at once. He reapplied himself to task, his own cock jerking in the lukewarm water upon the realisation that Draco was grinding his erection against the side of the tub. Draco rode his face with such enthusiasm that they almost broke their necks slipping on the waves of water over the floor by the time they got out, stumbling and dripping and frantic, to fuck yet again on Draco’s sex-rumpled bed. 

They were falling asleep by the time Harry remembered that desire of forever he’d felt in the bath. Sleepy, he lingered over the memory simply because it made him feel good, kissed Draco’s jaw, and closed his eyes.

*

The blackout charms over Draco’s window made Harry late for work the second time he stayed over. He kissed Draco’s slurred apologies away and departed, but for the next several days, he thought of how convenient that sort of charm was for someone who frequently worked night hours. When he got home, he lured Draco over to show him the spell before strategically saying, “Sooo, do you only like _getting_ fucked, or…”

Harry’s wagging eyebrows finished the suggestion for him, and he grinned at the sharp, intent stare Draco sent his way. He let himself get knocked backwards onto his bed from the force of Draco’s body. 

After showing Harry that he did, indeed, occasionally like doing the fucking, Draco tucked his face against Harry’s neck. Shaking, still breathing hard, he left it there long after his hips had stopped jerking. Harry pet the sweaty strands of his hair back and marvelled over the sensation of Draco going soft inside him, enjoying the soreness in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Enjoying the stickiness between their bodies the way he had from the start. 

“I can’t,” Draco said, the words gusting humid over Harry’s skin. 

A bit dazed, Harry had to think about that one. He laughed. “I’m pretty sure you just did.”

Draco made a disgruntled sound. “Even if it weren’t unethical—” he began, and Harry laughed harder.

“It’s unethical for me to let you…?”

“Ugh, fuck off.” Draco pulled out, rolling to the side. He passed a hand over his face, then lower, running his fingers through Harry’s spunk on his stomach — thoughtfully, if such a thing could be considered thoughtful. He sighed, his jaw knotting. 

“I don’t— I never meant for this to happen,” he said, each word chipping off like flint. Sparked with challenge. He paused when Harry tensed, then went on, in a modified tone, “And I’ve been the Healer assigned to most of your emergency cases, anyway. Which has worked well for us. I shouldn’t even have signed your Release to Work form after that, ah. The night you woke up,” he said, mildly, though he continued to glower at the ceiling. “There’s no world in which it’s okay that I treat you while we’re…”

Harry exhaled slow, turning the implications over in his mind. “I can request another Healer,” he said. “I’ll request another Healer.”

“I know your case history.” 

Draco spoke with a strange, flat affectation that arrested Harry’s attention and soothed the initial bursts of hot rage and cold terror working through him. He turned onto his side and lifted up onto an elbow. 

“Do you not want to—” he gestured back and forth “—with me?” Harry knew Draco loved him, that he hadn’t anticipated any change to their relationship; he’d vaguely assumed Draco would get around to worrying over any potential ramifications. But Harry wasn’t quite sure how to cope with how deep his own fear could go from Draco’s unconvincing implication that his feelings might not be representative of his wants. That Draco might not be ready for things to change. 

_It has never mattered to him whether you share his feelings,_ Harry thought, _and it never will._

Selfishly, impatiently, Harry wanted it to matter. Wanted to find out how much it could.

“It would be less complicated.”

“Draco,” Harry said. 

Draco whipped a hard, keen look at him. His skin was as delicate as winter, and just as pale and easily marked; Harry could clearly see the abrasions his stubble had left around Draco’s lips, on Draco’s chin and cheeks and neck. The rest of Draco’s body had been similarly branded by Harry’s hands and mouth, with bruises and love-bites, though Harry didn’t think their lovemaking had been particularly rough. He wondered what that indicated about Draco, if it was some sort of incidental, biological representation of how close to the surface everything Draco felt was, despite how contained he tried to be. 

Probably not. But Harry wondered.

“I _do_ want to,” he said deliberately. “I won’t hold it against you if you don’t. But I didn’t think of this as a one-off.”

“Of course not,” Draco said after a pause. “And I’ll admit, it would be convenient to add you to my list of Floo calls when I’m feeling particularly—”

Getting truly angry, Harry set his teeth to brace against Draco’s next words, but Draco never got around to saying them. With a sigh, he rolled to his other side and put his back to Harry. 

“‘Hey, I have a few days off,’” Draco finally said — quoted. “‘Come over when you get off work if you’re free, need your help with blackout charms.” He finished with a sardonic scoff. Harry’s rising temper vanished like smoke. He hesitated, awkwardly debating with himself before scooting close, but stopped with a few inches left between them, when the line of Draco’s bare shoulders went tense. He heard Draco swallow. 

“You were gone for a _week_ , Potter,” he said, with stiff, painful honesty. “I spent the first day trying to compose a note inviting you over again. When the Ministry Owl returned it — they do that, return Owls sent to employees who are gone and don’t have a return date, did you know? Because I hadn’t — I spent the next six wondering whether the next time I saw you would be like the last time. I hadn’t even been aware you’d got an assignment of that nature. Which is fine. Of course it is. But was I _supposed_ to think this was anything more than a curiosity or convenience?”

“I—” Helplessly, pointlessly, Harry shook his head and stared at the fading scores his nails had left on Draco’s back. He stroked one, lightly, just over the sturdy push of Draco’s left shoulder blade. “Yes. But— you’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He bit the inside of his cheek, ashamed of his own inability to be that open, furious with himself for his assumption he _had_ been, that because it _seemed_ simple, it could be. 

“I didn’t think. I sometimes don’t,” he admitted. The jut of Draco’s shoulder blade shifted under Harry’s fingertip, moving inward as Draco relaxed. “This part is new to me, too. When I woke up, when you kissed me—” he said, only for Draco to cut him off.

“As I said: Complicated.”

“Not too complicated. Not for me,” Harry said, closing the distance still left between them. Draco stayed pliant for the arm Harry slipped around his waist and, feeling his way, the apologetic kiss Harry pressed to his jaw . Harry carefully fit them together, and let out a breath when Draco reached back to rest an idle hand on his hip. 

“What if—?” Harry stopped, unable to even consider posing the theoretical question on the tip of his tongue without feeling lanced through. He loved his job, was good at it, had always felt meant for it; being an Auror wasn’t something he thought he could give up. But: “Is that a dealbreaker? My job?”

Draco’s back expanded against Harry’s chest with another deep sigh. “I wouldn’t be able to act as your Healer whenever you decided to act stupid in the line of duty. I dislike the idea of not being able to help you,” he said, which wasn’t a yes. “You’re too bloody brave; it makes you reckless. I’ve never been either of those things. I can’t be.”

Harry disagreed, chest tight with tenderness. “I can be less reckless,” he said. “And I’ll keep you informed. I’m sorry for that, it was crap of me—”

“Yes, it really was,” Draco said, an emphatic, irritated slant to his words.

Harry let it go as deserved. “—and I won’t do it again. I shouldn’t have, but we hadn’t… talked. There are some things I want to tell you, actually.”

“I don’t want to hear them,” Draco said quickly, and so uncompromisingly that Harry blinked. But he gripped Harry’s hand when Harry made to pull away, and tugged it further around his midsection — uncompromising there, as well. Draco paused, then he blew out a breath and said, “It’s just… rather a lot of discussion for half two in the morning. But I wouldn’t complain if you kept me informed, no.”

Warily, Harry considered him. “So I’m already learning,” he finally said, relieved when Draco grumbled. “I’ve learned a lot recently. Haven’t I.”

“Well.” Draco cleared his throat and left his response at that. 

“I’ll request whichever Healer you recommend too,” Harry said, risking a smile. “And won’t be with anyone else, the way I’m with you.”

“I’m not asking you to _marry_ me or anything, mind you,” Draco said, sounding more defensive over Harry’s total capitulation than he had about Harry’s idiocy. But it was Draco’s words, rather than his tone, which gave Harry pause. With a restless shift against Harry, Draco grudgingly added, “It’s humiliating enough that we’re fucking.”

Since Legilimency had never been one of Harry’s talents, Harry brushed aside his curiosity and took Draco’s use of present tense as a good sign. Memories flashed through him, slivered and perfect: the blush on Draco’s nape, his shuddery groans, the tub water sloshing onto the floor each time he bucked against Harry’s mouth.

“A little more humiliation could hardly hurt matters then, could it?” Harry said. “Are you off work tomorrow?” he asked, and felt the ripple of Draco’s shock. 

The longer Draco’s breathless pause went on, the more convinced Harry grew over how brilliant the idea was. Years had passed since he’d stopped bothering to deny the extent of his fascination with Draco; if nothing else, the longevity of that fascination boded well. He’d always liked knowing things about Draco and, since they’d become friends, he liked the things he learned. 

Everything else might be _feel_ new between them, but… it wasn't, really. And if the rest held fast, Harry couldn't see a reason to wait. 

Besides, if Draco wanted to accuse him of impulsivity, it would only give Harry the opportunity to explain that he was wrong, and Harry liked doing that, too.

“Did you just suggest—” Draco blew out a breath, his bicep bunching and releasing over Harry’s forearm. “—something you couldn’t possibly have just suggested?”

“There are so many ways to be brave,” Harry said. Eying the faint, yellowing bruise his teeth had left on Draco’s shoulder the week prior, he angled his head, and positioned another small bite there. Draco shuddered, his hand clenching the sheet over Harry’s hip, and Harry murmured, “I was trying out the one you just showed me.”

“I— Fuck.”

“It would definitely result in a lot more of that too,” Harry said, sliding his hand to circle Draco’s hardening cock. He drew Draco’s foreskin down the length of his shaft. Back up. Down. Paused to rub over the plump head of Draco’s prick with his thumb. Draco cursed under his breath and started moving with him.

Inching a rut into Harry’s fist, he said, “The— Everyone, they— They’ll hate it, there’s no way to even tell people such a thing, how would, _uhhh_ , we even, _fuck_ , do it? ‘Harry’ — _Harry! Ah!_ — Harry Potter and Death Eater Dra—”

“ _No_ ,” Harry said fiercely, with a prohibitive squeeze around the base of Draco’s cock. “Don’t. Not ever again, not with me. Do you understand?” he demanded, exhaling when Draco’s hips stilled. “Can’t you just— tell me what’s stopping you?”

Harry knew he was stepping outside an agreement that had gone unacknowledged between them until that moment; Draco struggled to talk about his feelings sometimes, and slipped easily into old habits when he was disturbed. Swinging the crutch of his cruelty at Harry like a weapon was reactive, and something Harry could handle; it let Harry know he was trampling all over something sensitive and gave him the chance to redirect the conversation. Draco leaning himself on that crutch was a thing that went so much deeper. Harry usually dropped the subject entirely when Draco did it, but an eternity of hearing him vilify himself in small ways wasn’t something Harry was willing to tolerate. 

“You have a few things to learn, too,” Harry said.

Draco’s chest hitched. He nodded slowly, an ache behind his silence. Harry gentled his grasp, adjusting it with a slow slip down to the crown of Draco’s cock and stopping there. Holding him, Harry teased Draco’s sac with his pinky as he waited, and could practically hear Draco brace himself. 

“If you die again, Harry—” Draco whispered.

“I won’t,” Harry said without hesitation, as honest as he’d ever been. Twice, Draco had opened himself up; unstinting reassurance felt like the least Harry could give him, and Harry couldn’t think of a single Auror he worked with who wouldn’t personally volunteer to make sure he held to such a promise, if he ever had trouble holding it on his own. “I won’t do that to you. I give you my word I’ll do everything in my power not to. If you think— If you can have a little faith in me.”

The tension leached from Draco’s spine, almost as quickly as Harry had interrupted him. He arched a rub of his arse against Harry’s cock and resumed rocking into Harry's hand. He let Harry wank him, slow and steady, for a few measures, then said, “Roll onto your stomach,” in a voice seductive as an apple presented by the brightest-eyed of snakes. “I’m going to finger my spunk back into you until you come again, and then you can suck me until I’m ready to come on your face.”

Blasted through with heat, Harry released Draco and rolled over. Draco came with him, slipping over Harry to straddle the backs of his thighs. He purred something, too low for Harry to make out, and flattened a hand on Harry to thumb his arse cheeks apart. His cock felt heavy and big over the crease of Harry’s clenched thighs; Draco frotted there lightly and tapped the sensitive rim of Harry’s arsehole with two fingers, then plunged them in deep.

“ _Ah! Christ!_ ” Harry’s breath exploded from his lungs and, squirming, he bit down on the pillow.

“Shh, shh.” Draco lowered himself to plaster them together. The position took away all of Harry’s leverage and left only a small gap between their bodies for Draco’s hand to work. He propped his chin on the back of Harry’s shoulder and continued the unapologetic pump of his fingers — in and out of Harry, and again, each time twisting them with a firm drag over Harry’s prostate. “It’s good, yeah?”

Harry managed a whimper, a nod, stifled by a mouthful of cotton-wrapped feathers and a scramble of desire in his brain trying to work out how he could fuck himself on Draco’s fingers or fuck harder against the mattress with Draco’s weight pinning him in place. He didn’t think it would take very long even if he couldn’t. His bollocks were already throbbing with the need to come.

Draco kissed the knobs at the top of Harry’s spine. Lifted his head again.

“Potter,” he murmured, huskily, in a way that sounded like _Yes_ , “I’ve never had faith in anything, so much as I’ve always had in you.”

*

Harry bypassed the waiting period in the Netherlands by requesting a meeting with the Dutch Minister for Magic, an intimidating man who was nevertheless kind, and still grateful to Harry for having saved his granddaughter two years prior; he seemed pleased to call the Muggle Prime Minister for Harry and arrange things. Waiver in hand, the only waiting Harry and Draco had to do was in the queue to the civil registry office.

“But — it’s really legal? For Muggles?” Draco asked every five minutes, and drifted back into his own thoughts every time Harry said yes. 

“You love me,” Harry said quietly after the fifth time, only one couple left ahead of them. 

Draco whitened and pressed his lips together. Gaze set deliberately forward, he gave Harry a small, jerky nod, and returned Harry’s relieved hand-squeeze with a tightening of his own grip.

“You can change your mind,” Draco said, when it was only them. 

“I don’t want to,” Harry said. “I love you too.” 

Harry felt the recoil of Draco’s cringe and turned to look at him, only to find Draco’s expression hadn’t flickered at all. The chamber doors opened and their names were called. Draco took a deep breath and led the way with long strides, his clasp damp but determined. 

They didn’t have rings; Harry hadn’t thought that far. Later, fucked out and boneless on their wedding night, he said, “We can get whatever kind you want.”

“No,” Draco said after a pause, stroking gentle and thoughtful through Harry’s hair. “We’d both have to take them off when we were on duty, anyway. Besides, wearing a ring would only get in the way of my social life, and if that’s the best you can do,” he said, with an insolent smile and a sidelong glance that slipped slow down Harry’s body, “I’m really going to need one.”

He laughed when Harry growled, and yielded to Harry’s reach for him, neither of them nearly as fucked out as Harry had thought. 

“Draco,” Harry gasped above him, close, “I love—”

Draco put a hand over Harry’s mouth and looked at him when Harry stopped. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were desperate on Harry’s. Aching, Harry nodded. Slowly, Draco began an upward rhythm with his hips. He finally took his hand away and grabbed onto Harry’s hips to prevent him from moving; their gazes still locked, he fucked himself on Harry’s cock with smooth, rolling motions until Harry thought he’d die if he couldn’t thrust. 

“Why?” Harry asked him, afterwards. 

“I don’t know,” Draco said, “but—”

He kissed Harry. They made love again, and again, in the big white hotel bed, each time just as good as the first time had been, and every subsequent time since: having Draco, and being had by him. 

Back in England, Harry approached their marriage with the smug delight of discovery. Every new detail he learned about Draco was something he loved: the way he staggered around peevishly for an hour after a good night’s sleep, yet could be fully alert after only a two hour kip between back-to-back shifts at the hospital; the slow-breaking smile he gave Harry whenever they got to wake up together; the tiny courtesies he showed in fixing Harry’s tea if he had to go to work before Harry got up, in remembering to pick up Harry’s favourite crisps at the market, in the cooling charms he cast on Harry’s side of the bed. The complex edges of their friendship expanded like the margins of a never-ending puzzle, allowing Harry the space to catalogue the ridiculous or extreme or inconsequential things he never would have even known to look for otherwise.

And Draco let him, answering every question Harry asked — as generous with most of his thoughts and habits as he was in bed. He spelled the bed hangings to match the duvet because if they didn’t, he couldn’t fall asleep, he explained when Harry asked, and he’d hated milk since the first time he could remember drinking it; because of the texture, he thought. He confessed to keeping his plants in the bedroom because they died when he didn’t, and yet he couldn’t resist buying them; he thought champagne tasted like carbonated piss and wouldn’t touch it, but he loved red wines, no matter their cost. Harry’s casual use of wandless magic irked Draco’s competitive streak as much as it turned him on — Harry found that one out by chance about six months in, when he twitched his fingers to light Draco’s collection of outlandishly-named candles late one night only to be wrestled, laughing, onto his knees and immediately mounted. 

“Shove that talent in my face and you're going to get my cock up your arse for it,” Draco panted like it was any sort of threat, fucking Harry with one possessive hand around his throat as the room filled with potent scents like _Luscious Honeysuckle Starlight_ and _Midsummer Fairy Chorus_ and _The Dream You Prematurely Woke From_. 

Harry loved it, loved _Draco_ , and felt seen by him. He treasured Ron and Hermione's loyalty, but at times felt guilty for allowing them to foster such a blind faith in his goodness. Draco saw that the goodness in Harry was something he'd collected in scraps, and had to cling to at times, rather desperately; Draco saw the tattered, ugly stains of Harry's life alongside his goodness, and he could make room for both. He always seemed to know without being told when one of Harry’s cases went awry, and always knew what to do about the turbulent magic seething through Harry’s veins because of it, whether that meant listening patiently while Harry ranted about work, or repairing shattered windows without batting an eye, or stripping them both down and making himself an offering Harry could spill his frustration into. 

In that, Harry learned not just about Draco but _from_ him: how to make the comfort he offered less about himself than someone else’s. When Draco lost a patient or woke up shaking from a nightmare, Harry listened, and pulled together the threads of what he knew about Draco, to become whatever Draco needed. 

Love could be like that, Draco taught him, and it made the everyday bits of marriage feel miraculous, like watching the slow unfold of a night-blooming flower’s petals. As simple, as easy. 

Not everything was. Tipped off by a Dutch Squib who’d recognised them filling out paperwork, the press had raged around them from the second they stepped foot back in England; Harry had to endure Ron and Hermione’s betrayed silence for a month and walk softly around them for months after; Draco returned to Harry’s flat wilted and sullen after telling his parents, and dropped into a sour mood for days whenever he recognised their Eagle owl tapping at the window. 

All of the simple-to-navigate boundaries of their friendship were gone, and they sought familiarity in fighting with one another, stupidly and often viciously, over things that didn’t matter to Harry at all: the invitation to one of the Ministry’s fundraising galas, whether they should cook or go out or order takeaway. Harry floundered, sure there was more behind their fights, unsure what to do to stop having them, goaded when asking only resulted in another one. 

_We’ve shaped each other,_ Harry thought, reassured. Trying to be. 

He focused, when he could, on the things that quickly became more important than anything else. Serendipitous moments, like a happy little quirk in nature’s design for him — so grand in scale whenever Harry looked back, he wondered how he lived through them without comprehending how much they would matter: eggs on toast and warm, bare feet touching under the kitchen table; the weight of Draco’s head on Harry’s lap as he fell asleep, midday, to the drag of Harry’s fingers through his hair; the first time Draco pressed himself to Harry’s back as Harry washed the dishes, only to turn him around and begin a slow sway in the middle of the kitchen to the sound of old jazz standards playing over the Wireless. 

Those were the things that held him together in the aftermath of every fight; he and Draco bridged the gap from one to the next with sex that never got any less brilliant. He never stopped wanting to touch Draco. That helped, since he couldn't die every time he wanted an arrow to point him down the right path; he wasn't even sure he'd be given the chance to come back again, if he did. 

So Harry waited, like he sensed Draco was waiting too. He didn’t know what they waited for, but sometimes it was the only thing you could do, no matter how impatient you were. 

Even Harry knew that.

*

Fucking to end a fight before one of them hurt each other became a bad habit, and sometimes, Harry thought the sex hurt him more than a flying hex would; the clawing, angry need between them felt like everything they’d left behind years ago.

On Harry’s worst days, _We’ve shaped each other_ became _We’ve stunted each other_ , and on those days, he hated Draco for ever having loved him in the first place. For ever having shown it. On those days Harry hated himself for still loving him, and for ever having begun to think he might be allowed a happily-ever-after. 

He’d never actually been promised one, after all. 

Their first anniversary brought everything to a head. Harry did everything he could think of to avoid a fight, was appalled when he couldn’t and appalled over the fight itself — a nonsensical thing, yet terrible, about the Aurors Harry worked with. Afterwards, Draco lifted his head from Harry’s lap, wiped the smear of come from the corner of his mouth, and slumped onto his own pillow. He drew his arm over his eyes. 

“You can change your mind if you want,” he said, flooding Harry’s system once more with all of the bitter resentment he’d just distracted Harry from feeling.

“So can you,” Harry snarled, then added, “You’re not my bloody hostage, Draco, and if you keep trying to martyr yourself on this marriage, one of these days I’m going to let you,” and got up to dress.

Dinner was tense. Draco was arch but distant with Blaise and Pansy, politely detached with Ron and Hermione, and actively cool towards Harry when he wasn’t busy being snide. He looked beautiful and untouchable in the Versace Harry had given him, a slim-fit suit in royal blue, and blue-and-black patterned tie. He toyed lazily with the tie over dinner, stroking over the silk and smirking as if to remind Harry of the game they’d played with it that very morning, and instead of saying _You asked me to, you fucking shit_ , Harry ordered a third whisky, a fourth, and then insisted everyone join them at their place afterwards for a drink. 

“We can’t stay very long,” Hermione said once they were there, exchanging a worried glance with Ron. 

“Nice of you to say so upfront,” Harry muttered, and headed for the liquor cabinet. 

“Alright,” Pansy said, “what’s going on with you two? You’re acting like you—”

The bottle in Harry’s hand exploded. Soaked with gin, Harry stared at the blood welling from two deep, irregular gashes in his palm, numb to any pain they might be causing. He pulled out the bits of broken glass he could see, set them carefully aside, and excused himself with apology to go clean up.

In the kitchen, he turned on the cold tap and ran his hand under the water. The sounds of badly-muffled voices from the other room rose, quieted, rose again. Harry should have felt drunk and realised with regret that he’d never felt more sober. 

“Hey.” Ron ambled in, pulled out a kitchen chair. “Need any help with that?” 

It was a rhetorical question — he’d already sat down. Harry didn’t turn. He watched as the water slowed the gush of blood. Watched the gush transform into ribbons and wash away. 

“Draco doesn’t trust me,” he said, and blinked, and stared harder at his hand, wondering where that had come from.

“Yeah,” Ron said, sounding glum about it. “I don’t envy you there. Well, anywhere really, I doubt Malfoy’d be my type even if I swung that way. That new Beater for PuddU, maybe,” he added with a thoughtful air. “Blaise isn’t a bad sort of bloke. I’d probably like a guy with lots of muscles.”

Harry blinked again. He twisted the tap off and got the tea towel from the counter to press into his palm, then turned around. “Because you can’t build any yourself?”

“Draco loves you,” Ron said with a faint smile. 

“You and Hermione don’t—”

“What, want to kill each other sometimes?” Ron cracked a laugh. “You know better than that.”

“Doubt each other, I was going to say.”

“God, mate. Yes we do. Can’t expect to be with someone your whole life and never feel that way. We’ve just had a decade to learn how to be discreet about it.” Ron was quiet for a moment. “Have you asked yourself why he might not trust you?” 

“You think I’ve done something to _earn_ that?” Harry asked incredulously. 

“I think it maybe would have been smart to work stuff like that out before running off to marry someone you’d been shagging for only a couple of weeks.”

“I knew,” Harry said, leaning against the counter. “I knew he was the one. That he _is._ He just can’t…”

“Yeah?” Ron raised an eyebrow, waiting, and Harry groped for the end of that sentence.

“He just can’t let himself believe it,” he finally said. 

“Bloody hell, Harry, who can, other than you?” 

Harry ignored that. “He picks fights over stupid things instead of talking to me about— about how he hates my job, or if we’ll get mobbed when we go out in public, or that I’ll grow tired and leave him for the hot new Auror in the office—”

“For fuck’s sake, _tell_ me you didn’t call some new bloke hot in front of your husband _Draco Malfoy_ , you fucking tit,” Ron said, rolling his eyes.

“I started to describe what he looked like, _when asked_ ,” Harry said, angry about it anew. His hand was starting to sting, the clean white towel sopping red. He turned back to the sink and ran the water again, mostly so he didn’t have to look at Ron’s face. “I got as far as ‘tall and blond’ before the argument went sideways and _yes_ , I get the implications, but he is the love of my whole disastrous fucking life, I am _stupid_ in love with him, would murder and die in love with him, if he asked me to blind myself so I’d never see another tall, blond man again, I’d probably fucking do that too in love with him, but he says it’s okay if I _leave_ him like _he’d_ be okay with it after a fucking _year_ , with my come still on his fucking breath, like he’s not killing _me_ and—”

“Hey,” Ron said, low and serious. Harry gripped the edge of the countertop with his free hand, panting and furious and scared, and kept his eyes on the blood seeping into the sink — washing away, over and over. He heard the scrape of the kitchen chair against the floor, and a moment later, Ron was at his side. “It’s not an instant thing for most people, much as you’d like it to be — maybe the way it is for you. It takes time for the rest of us. I was absolutely sure ‘bout Hermione when I was _fifteen_ , but, well. Terrified for years after we got married that I was, I don’t know. Dreaming it. Going to lose her. That it was temporary.”

“How can something that feels this way be temporary?” Harry asked.

“How can it not feel that way, to someone like Draco?” Ron said. “You’ve been through a fuck ton more than most people, Harry, and I know it’s your nature now to just… leap. Is it his?”

Ron’s gaze was heavy on the side of his face, and Harry wanted to say yes. Wanted to be stubborn about it. Draco had invited him over the very same night Harry made his desire known, after all; he’d pulled Harry with him into the registrar’s chambers. But neither of those things had been his idea. It was a sickening realisation. Harry shook his head.

“At some point you’ve got to accept that even if things are temporary,” Ron said, “it’s what you’ve got now that matters. So you two haven’t reached that point yet, so what. Draco’s got a list of issues longer than his bloodline, no wonder he picks fights with you over stupid things, the question is why do you fight back if you think they’re so… ” Ron trailed off and Harry blew out a breath.

“I don’t know.” Even as the words came out, Harry wondered if they were true. “Maybe—”

“Why the _fuck_ ,” Ron said, strangled, “aren’t you just Healing that?”

Harry glanced at him, saw Ron’s gaze had dropped to Harry’s hand. His face was the colour of parchment, overlaid with the intricate connect-the-dots of his freckles. When they went drinking together, Harry liked to amuse himself by actually connecting them in his head; he’d found snails, and dogs, and once a Hippogriff down Ron’s right cheek, though because he’d never been able to recreate the pattern, he assumed he’d imagined it in a burst of drunken creativity. 

Ron was still blinking at Harry’s hand. Under the running water, blood gone as soon as it spilled to the surface, the gashes did look pretty terrible — cut clear through the soft layers of muscle in his palm, ragged-edged — and was beginning to feel a lot worse than it looked.

“Draco does it for me,” Harry said. Ron stared at him, so Harry shrugged and explained, “You know I’m shit with Healing charms, so I bring the regular stuff to him. He’s brilliant, never leaves a scar.”

Shaking his head, Ron opened his mouth several times and took just as many pauses, as though he had a lot to say and didn’t know where to start. At length, he said, “You fucking lackbrain.”

“What?”

“If you’re so arse over tit about Draco Malfoy that you won’t even Heal yourself without his permission, how can you claim to be worried about your relationship?”

“It’s less about my being arse over tit than him,” Harry said absently, considering. 

“I keep telling you, I don’t want any specifics about your—” Ron huffed and shook his head. “Those cuts are _really_ bad, Harry, you—”

“How bad?” Draco said, already striding into the kitchen. He’d taken off his jacket, had rolled the sleeves of his crisp black shirt up to his elbows. He pushed Ron back with one of them — “Sorry, Weasley, but move.” — and took his spot. Ron backed away, muttering to himself, and Draco eyed the bloody tea-towel Harry’d dropped into the basin of the sink, then held out an expectant hand, palm up.

Harry put his wrist in it. Draco sighed, brow furrowing. He reached into Harry’s jacket and plucked Harry’s wand from the holster hugging his ribcage, giving Harry a distracted frown when Harry inhaled with surprise. 

“Hermione left and said she’ll see you at home,” Draco said to Ron, head dipped over Harry’s hand. “Do me a favour and fetch my kit before you leave. It’s to the left of the Floo.”

“Malfoy—”

“She took care of it,” Draco snapped, “I don’t need to hear it from you, too — _ever_ , but especially when Harry is bleeding. Get my bloody kit and go home. Thank you.”

Harry met Ron’s exasperated gaze over the gleam of Draco’s hair, and gave him a feeble shrug. Ron sighed and stalked from the kitchen. Draco glanced up at Harry, blew the strands of his fringe off his forehead, then wordlessly guided Harry to sit with him at the table. He was concluding a diagnostic spell on damage to Harry’s hand when Ron returned with his bag, and nodded without looking over. 

“Thank you,” he said again. “Go away now.”

“You two were made for each other, you know that, right?” Ron grumbled, and stalked back out.

“Yeah,” Harry said, gaze falling to Draco. “I do, anyway.”

Draco’s cheeks went pink, and he shifted in his seat. He flicked Harry a glance; Harry was startled to see his eyes were bloodshot and a bit red-rimmed. His pointy nose was pink at the tip. 

“That’s my wand,” Harry murmured. Draco grunted and continued what he was doing without pause. His casual use of it seemed connected to the question Ron had asked — how there could be doubt between them, when such intimacies could be taken for granted. “You’ve never used it before.”

“Not everyone goes around nabbing other people’s wands,” Draco said, narrowing his eyes at Harry’s hands. “But mine is on the sofa, and this couldn’t wait.”

Harry watched him for a moment, then asked, “How long were you standing there, listening?” He hissed as Draco’s Numbing charm began to spread through the exposed nerves; they always burned a little before they started working, but not usually that badly unless Draco was feeling particularly cross with him. 

“I’m the love of your life,” Draco murmured, digging out a strip of medicated gauze from his bag with one hand. He pressed it against Harry’s palm and said, “Hold that,” before turning to hunt through his bag for something else. 

Harry gritted his teeth and applied pressure to the gauze. “And?”

“And—” Draco’s lips tightened; he pulled out four slender phials, three of them caught cleverly between the fingers of his hand, one held to his palm with his thumb — a blood regeneration potion, Harry thought, taking it when Draco popped the cork and passed it over. Draco waited until the phial was empty, then handed Harry another and gestured for Harry’s hand again. Peeling the gauze away as Harry swallowed the second potion, he took up Harry’s wand once more and said, “And— Fuck, Harry, I don’t know.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Draco said, flashing a furious look upward. He flinched and bent his head again, as though eye contact with Harry was painful, then blew out a slow, controlled breath and drizzled something warm onto Harry’s hand. “I spent most of my life readily believing something awful, and was willing to give up—” The trailing, misty pink magic flowing from the tip of Harry’s wand paused, then continued. “—anything else I might have longed for, because at the end of the war I was supposed to go on to better things. I’m a fucking Death Eater, Harry.”

“Were,” Harry said, scowling.

Draco muttered something else, cocooning Harry’s whole hand in pink mist, and shoved up from his chair. He paced from to the end of their small kitchen, and back, then held out his forearm. “ _Were_ , yes, but _am_ , and _always will be_! Just because you don't want me to talk about it doesn't make it irrelevant!” 

Harry reared back. "I didn't mean that you couldn't…" He licked his lips, heart roaring in his ears, and made himself look. 

Draco's Dark Mark had faded to a few shades darker than his skin over the years. Harry took it in, the blurry lines shaping the coil of the snake, the skull he could see a little if he squinted. He hadn’t applied much thought to it in years, not as anything other than something Draco was ashamed of having, or that Harry might need to defend him over; hadn’t wanted to, maybe. 

_He has shaped himself around you_ Harry thought, and wondered how much of himself Draco worried Harry didn’t see. Harry looked up.

“Okay. I know.”

Draco let out a breath, gave Harry a definitive nod. “Okay.” He sat down again, seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment. “Yes. So. I’m. Well. You know how I feel. And I’m smart enough to take the opportunities that come my way; I wasn’t going to turn you down after saving your life made you catch feelings for me,” he said, directing his sneer at Harry’s hand. “But as disagreeable as it might be to admit, Weasley isn’t wrong. Not everyone can just— accept the good fortune they’re handed. Especially those of us that don’t deserve— that haven’t earned it yet. I fucking _married_ you to prove how much I… Can you give me some time for the rest?”

Harry sat with that for a moment as Draco shook himself slightly, then tugged Harry’s hand a bit closer. 

“You weren’t like this in school,” Harry finally said, and Draco scoffed.

“I wasn’t like a lot of things. I grew up.”

“I know,” Harry said. “That’s my point.”

Catching his lip between his teeth, Draco finished up with Harry’s hand in silence, then wrapped it in a bandage and thrust his hand away, and rolled another phial across the table towards him. “That’ll help with the muscle repair. It’s going to hurt, come morning,” he warned, slumping back in his chair. 

Harry drank the potion and licked the tangy sweetness from his lips. He handed Draco the empty phial and said, “You didn’t save my life.”

“Excuse me?” Draco lifted an eyebrow.

“I mean.” Harry waved his good hand. “Yeah, but— I chose to come back. For you.”

“This I’ve got to hear.”

“Do you really want to?”

Draco hesitated, and when he lifted his eyes to Harry’s, there was gratitude in them. “Probably not… yet.”

Harry nodded. “How long do you need?” he asked. He’d never thought to, before. “Until you can let me… tell you things. Or— Believe the stuff I tell you. Only because I don’t want to keep fighting over ridiculous things,” he rushed out when Draco opened his mouth, “and I don’t want to hear you tell me I can leave you again, living apart from you isn’t an option for—”

“It’s not for me, either,” Draco said, breathlessly. “I can stop doing that.” He left his chair again, this time swooping forwards and coming down onto his knees between Harry’s legs. He put his hands on top of Harry’s thighs, rubbed up and down the fabric of his trousers. “I get… I look at you, and us, and it’s so... I get… I’ll make myself stop," he promised. "And— And I’ll tell you when. When I can hear what you want to tell me.”

“Draco—”

“Let me have you for longer than I haven’t,” Draco said. His voice was fervent, his hands warm on Harry’s legs, his gaze steady on Harry’s face. “I’ll believe whatever you say about me, then.”

Harry didn’t know if Draco’s timeline consisted of the fifteen years between Madam Malkin’s and their first kiss, or only the years since they’d become friends. But he’d done everything Harry had asked, so far, his strain to do so shown only in the frustration that resulted in their fights. Harry's lungs tightened as he realised how little room he'd given Draco to breathe. 

“I want to fuck you tonight,” he said, because he did, and because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Slow.”

Draco shuddered and dug his fingers into Harry’s trousers. He dropped his forehead to Harry’s thigh, exhaled and nodded, then lifted his head to gaze at the growing shape of Harry’s cock. Leaning in, he mouthed at it lightly, his breath hot and damp through the material. Harry spread his legs a bit wider, and Draco applied a bit of pressure with his teeth over Harry’s flies before pulling back to glance up again.

“I’ll ride your cock, then,” he said, low and rough. “Slow as you want. You shouldn’t put any weight on your hand.”

Harry nodded silently and watched Draco stand. Allowed Draco to pull him to his feet.

“Take me to bed, Harry,” Draco said, and kissed him. “Show me how you feel.”

*

The paps surrounded them the day after their second anniversary, on their way home from breakfast.

“How!” Someone shouted. “Draco, tell us how Harry Potter can love a man like you!” 

Draco’s face shuttered, but he stilled Harry’s hand when he reached for his wand. “Ask me next year,” he said, bored, “Someone asked a similar question last night, and no one had the stones to publish my answer. One’s all you get, everyone. Probably all you really need, though, if you’re me,” he added, with a pointed glance at Harry’s crotch. There were a few gasps and some muffled laughter, and Draco Side-Alonged Harry home.

“It’s not okay,” Harry said through his teeth. They’d had a good year, and he didn’t want to fight, but it _wasn’t_ okay, it just— _wasn’t._

“I know,” Draco said, with a distracted peek out of the curtains. “But I’ve got a Dark Mark, and I told you there would be complications, and I still have faith you won’t break your word by telling them before you’ve told me. You won’t, will you?”

“No,” Harry ground out, and stared at the rug, drawing in a long breath. He forced his hands to unclench. 

“And I love you for that,” Draco said. Harry jerked his head up. Draco had a copper-bright tinge to his cheeks, and the cords of his nape had gone taut. He didn’t look away from the window. “They’re already down there. How would you feel about spending the rest of the day finding a new house? I think Pansy liked her estate agent, and we could get a place zoned for better wards.”

Harry swallowed. “Sure,” he said, folding his arms over his chest to keep his hands from shaking. He tried not to smile. “We need more space for all of the plants you keep killing, anyway.”

“Don’t be absurd, Harry; I just happen to buy them right before they die,” Draco said, and walked to the Floo.

*

The night before their sixth anniversary, Draco disappeared for a few hours. He returned with a tattoo on the outside of his index finger, in the shape of Harry’s scar.

“I’m getting a bit too old for club hookups,” he said offhandedly, smirking, “so I thought I might as well.”

_Not yet,_ his eyes said. _I’m so sorry_ , they said, as though Draco knew Harry had been waiting.

The tattoo was solid black all the way through, stark and attention-grabbing against his pale skin. A symbol, indelible as the one Draco had on his forearm, and as clear a choice. 

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Harry said, “since you objected to me wearing a ring when I outgrew my orgy phase.” 

_It’s okay,_ Harry tried to tell Draco with his eyes. _I love you_ , he tried to say. _I always will_.

The prickle of fear in Draco’s expression vanished; his smile was heated, predatorial. “I think the parlour is open late,” he said.

“I want one, too,” Harry told him. "Let's go."

*

_**Now:**_

The scent of smoke startles Harry, and he realises the newspaper has ignited in his grip. Dropping it to the floor before the leaping flames can burn him, Harry crushes them with two hard, grinding stamps of his boot, and then Vanishes what’s left for good measure.

His team is looking at him silently — warily. Most of them have joined the ranks within the last few years, and have never before actually witnessed where the rumours about Harry stemmed from. Not outside the field of battle. When Ron worked beside him, he used to keep Harry in the loop for the gossip about him: Auror Potter in a temper can literally suck all the air from the room (only once, and the windows were open, so no one got hurt); Auror Potter duelled twenty Dark Wizards at once and killed them all (there’d only been nine, and he’d got lucky); Auror Potter shows as little compassion to his colleagues as he shows to his enemies (he simply has very high standards for the people entrusted with guarding his back); you can’t get as deadly as Auror Potter, Ron admitted to hearing when Harry began to wonder about the looks he’d started getting, without losing your ability to love. 

That one is categorically untrue. Harry hasn’t cared about the rumours in years — he’s done his best over the years to curate the more intimidating aspects of his professional reputation, in fact — but he still knows how to love. He loves and _is_ loved so powerfully, it puts his notorious magic to shame. 

“Wilkins,” he barks. Morris Wilkins, the newest member of his team, straightens and tugs his robes into place, wide-eyed but otherwise impressively stoic in the face of Harry’s wrath. Harry glances at the clock and swiftly calculates the time difference; it’ll be almost eight a.m. in England. 

“Yes, sir?”

“Go directly to the Minister,” Harry says, pulling his Identification pin from the collar of his robes. The gold winks in the light when he tosses it to the kid. “Interrupt whatever meeting she’s in; show that to anyone who tries to stop you. Tell her we’ll be closing in on the syndicate two days early and that she’ll have to get some things in order for — whatever happens while we’re in there. I won’t be returning to duty for a few days when we’re done here. She can Owl me my paperwork at home.”

“I’m— Excuse me, sir? Y-you want me to… to _tell_ the Minister that—”

“We’ll wait for you at the factory Apparition point for five minutes,” Harry says, moving on. “Use the Muting Charms coming in if you finish in time to join us.” He probably won’t, though. “If not, go straight to Debriefing when she’s done with you. You’ll be an automatic rank four on my next assignment, whatever the case, and I’ll see how you do.” 

He can’t exactly send the boy from a mission he’s worked so hard to qualify for without some sort of incentive. The chance to be part of Harry’s immediate, four-man squad a year ahead of schedule should suffice.

No compassion, Harry’s arse.

He hears Morris process the offer with a sharp inhale, and then a crack of Apparition as he sweeps a hard-eyed look over the rest of his team. Only the best of the very best can get certified in field work for the DMLE since he took over; they undergo rigorous hand-to-hand and magical combat training, hundreds of hours of psychological testing, and two years of Pensieve Simulative practices. They’re a good team to have, and he’s proud to have them — even if, in this case, he plans on doing most of the work.

“Wands out.” He stalks up and down the line of their team, snapping off orders. “Wait on my signal and stay behind me. Alpha squad, cover my flank. Everyone else, standard defensive fan pattern until the syndicate is either down or Disarmed and Bound. Questions? Good. _Move_.”

Harry watches them pop out of sight one by one, at ten second intervals. He doesn’t like doing this to Hermione, knows it’ll probably worry her and potentially create a media storm the likes of which she hasn’t faced since the last time Harry did something like this. But she knows well enough where Harry’s priorities lie — even if she had to learn it from the rampage Harry’d gone on when Draco had what turned out to be nothing more than an accidental case of food poisoning. 

The last member of his team disappears. Harry times his own departure, controlling the flood of anger through his extremities. He’s been gone for days, and he’ll need to use the full capacity of both — anger and control — if he wants to get home in the next twenty minutes.

*

Their house is still when Harry Floos in, and silent — no music playing on the Wireless, no Draco on the sofa, already sheepishly diving into the takeaway he’s ordered for Harry’s return. Harry enjoys coming home to those moments, likes existing with Draco in that private little bubble filled with their small talk, and casual touches while watching the telly, and the occasional slow dance, in whatever room they end up. Draco is more obstinate; he prefers to pretend neither of them ever stoop so low to participate in anything as mundane as domesticity.

Mostly, Harry thinks, because Draco knows it makes him laugh. 

With a small frown, Harry takes note of Draco’s work robes draped over the bannister. The rusty stains blotching their hems. Draco must have either returned home very late, or been very tired; Harry's money is on the latter. Shedding his own robes and dropping them atop Draco’s, he climbs the stairs. On the landing, the sound of the shower eases the worry that he’ll wake Draco from a dead sleep, but when he gets to their room, he realises the spray of water isn’t accompanied by the nonsensical hum of Draco’s soft baritone. 

Harry removes his glasses and strips down. Tosses his clothing into the laundry bin. He pushes into the steamy bathroom and stops for a moment when he’s close enough to see Draco in the shower stall through the mist; Draco stands under the spray, both hands flat on the tile, his head dropped defeatedly forward. Though his posture is concerning, Harry can’t help his admiration for the visual: the cascade of water down Draco’s back, the pale warmth of his complexion, his lanky, narrow-hipped height and the easy flex of his buttocks. It’s been a long time since those first few years when they could barely keep their hands off each other, but Harry thinks his body will respond to the sight of Draco’s nudity if they manage to live into their hundreds. He clears his throat to announce himself and pulls open the shower door.

Draco flinches, stealing a glance over his shoulder. He removes his hands from the tiles, stands up straight. But his lean back against Harry’s chest at the slip of Harry’s hands around his waist is immediate, relaxed. He strokes over Harry’s forearms and waits until Harry’s finished scattering kisses over the bend of his neck before turning his head, then takes Harry’s mouth in a slow kiss. 

“You’re home early,” he says, lazy with pleasure, though a subtle thread of tension runs through his voice. Harry rests his chin on Draco’s shoulder and raises an eyebrow when Draco presses the curve of his arse against Harry’s fattening cock. “I thought I had at least two more days to enjoy the quiet around here. I should hex you on principle.”

“Kinky,” Harry says, smiling when Draco snorts. He kisses Draco again, then admits, “I saw the papers,” and Draco’s hands pause on Harry’s wrists. 

“Well. That was quick.” Draco’s next kiss is perfunctory, his smile strained. He turns around, pulling out of Harry’s arms. Tipping his head back to rinse his hair under the water, eyes closed, he says, “They caught me leaving yesterday afternoon after a thirty-six hour shift; I’d been up all night tending a patient that kept trying to die and didn’t have time to think up a good response. But I’ve got a good one for next time, don’t worry.” He steps out from under the spray and runs a hand over his wet hair to wring out some excess water before eyeing Harry expectantly. “Poor Potter. Did you get to vanquish _any_ evil before getting called back?” he asks with a touch of wry sympathy. Harry hesitates, and Draco frowns. “Did someone get hurt?” 

“No,” Harry says, then amends, “Well, no one on my task force. Draco narrows his eyes at that, frown deepening. “All evil has been vanquished. For now. We got them.” 

“‘We,’” Draco mutters. He takes Harry’s chin in hand, thumb stroking damp along Harry’s whiskers as he turns Harry’s head from side to side, and then touches his cheek. “And this?” The pads of his fingers, when he displays them, are dark. 

“There was a lot of smoke,” Harry says mildly, but gives himself away with a guilty wince when Draco brings his fingers to his nose to check the scent of the soot. “Caused by a few flying curses. We were out in under fifteen minutes.” 

“Mm.” The sound is disapproving, but after a moment, Draco rolls his eyes and gestures. “Alright, then. Come here.” 

Harry allows Draco’s unofficial post-assignment examination, obediently rotating and lifting his arms at Draco’s nudging. Draco runs wet hands over his torso, along his neck, through his hair, over every scar Harry's collected in the last decade and a half. He makes Harry lift his feet so he can check the bottoms of each, bends to test the regrown cartilage in Harry’s left knee with a press of two fingers, and even cups Harry’s bollocks —unnecessarily — as he thumbs the barely visible remnants of the curse that split Harry’s femoral artery open, nearly twenty years ago. He steps back, apparently satisfied. 

“Thank you,” Draco says, soft and honest. He idly smooths another touch along the well-healed scar cut through the line of hair below Harry’s belly button, smirking a little at Harry’s erection, but he doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes or move back into Harry’s arms. “You really do need a thorough shower, though,” he says after a beat. He skirts around Harry. “I was done anyway; I’ll leave you to it.” 

Playing along, Harry laughs despite his worry, but he can’t resist reaching out to snake his fingers around Draco’s wrist. Draco gives him a sharp glance and Harry swallows; he tugs on Draco’s wrist. Eyes softening, Draco steps closer. Harry can feel his studying gaze as he lifts Draco’s hand to kiss Draco’s version of a wedding ring, the ink that marks him as Harry’s. 

“Feels like I haven’t come home, until I can,” he says. 

“No,” Draco says, with a rueful smile. “I know what you mean.” He presses his own kiss to Harry’s shoulder — and another, down further, rubbing his lower lip against the uppermost star in the Draconis constellation at the top of Harry’s bicep. His breath feels cool in the foggy bathroom heat, and the contrast of sensations makes Harry shiver. Draco lifts his head, and says, “Take your time.”

“Draco…”

“No, I don’t mean— I’m not avoiding anything.” Draco opens his mouth, closes it; a perplexed little groove fits itself between his eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” he says at last, and interrupts Harry’s protest by leaning in for another kiss. “Take your time,” he murmurs again, “and we’ll talk when you’re done.”

This time, Harry doesn’t try to stop him; heart pounding, he watches Draco wrap a towel around his waist on his way from the bathroom, then turns to adjust the shower taps and snag a flannel to clean up with.

*

Harry exits the bathroom to find Draco still in his towel, lounging at the foot of the bed — hands pressed into the down of the duvet behind him, feet flat on the floor, thighs parted wide enough that the slit of his towel bares one leg near up to his hip, just a few inches away from the bulge of his groin. He watches Harry look him over, smirking that smirk Harry wants to eat every time he sees it.

“Not avoiding, you said?” he says, and seats himself in the low-slung chair near their teak side cabinet, spreading his legs to mirror Draco’s pose. 

A small, churlish knot forms between Draco’s eyebrows before he can hide it. He stretches his legs out languidly, crosses one over the other. “Of course not.”

Harry laughs. “Merlin, I missed you,” he says, and Draco’s smirk softens into something closer to a smile. 

“So I gathered in the shower.” Draco’s eyes drop to Harry’s towel with a pointed look. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip

“Jesus. We’re supposed to talk.” Harry scrubs his face with one hand and shifts to get more comfortable. A hard-on that refuses to wilt entirely during a fifteen-minute shower is a pretty common side effect of both being married to Draco, and of having a job that occasionally keeps the two of them apart for weeks. “I ought to arrest you for that.”

Draco grins, a quick flash of white teeth. “You could try.” 

“Maybe later,” Harry says, looking around. 

There are usually a few changes every time he returns from a trip. This time, Draco’s redone the bedding in soft, cosy shades of white, and spelled their window curtains into a breezy, translucent material; he’s also, of course, replaced the flowers on the teak side cabinet with pink camellias and an accent of baby’s breath. 

They’d been together for eight years before Harry thought to question Draco’s claim of buying whatever bouquets were on special, and he’s fully aware he would have never understood their significance if it hadn’t occurred to him that he only saw flowers in the jar right before leaving on assignment and right after getting home. He’d bought a book about the language of flowers rather than drag Draco into an admission he’d rather not make; he tries not to do that, anymore.

Usually.

Reaching out, Harry touches the curl of a pink bud, its petals like velvet under his fingertip. “White heather and gladiolus when I left,” he says, and slants a look at Draco when Draco sucks in a breath. Harry pulls his hand back. “I like these better.”

Jaw flexing, Draco nods. “I do too.” He stares at Harry rather hard for a moment, then breaks their gaze. “I’m sorry, alright?” he grits out, like the words taste bad — like he wants to hex Harry for making him say them — and Harry scratches his beard to disguise the smile tugging at his lips. Draco glares at the floor. “I told you: I’d been up all night, and they took me off guard. My patient didn’t make it, and—”

That wipes the burgeoning smile from Harry’s face. “I’m sorry,” he says, moving from the chair to sit beside Draco. “You didn’t say that part, before. I thought— Well, I’m sorry.”

Draco shrugs and lets Harry lace their fingers together. Subdued, he says, “It’s going to make work hellish for you for a while.”

“I don’t give a single flaming shit about that, and you know it.”

“Lovely,” Draco says, snorting. He looks down at their clasped hands, resting on Harry’s knee. “I didn’t mean it.”

Harry thinks about the headline, and a new pang of grief runs through him. _**Malfoy And Potter to Seperate?** ‘I don’t know,’ a tear-stricken Malfoy says, when asked how Potter can love a former Death Eater, ‘Bugger off and ask him, why don’t you.’_

“I think you might’ve,” Harry says, drinking in the clean, haughty lines of Draco’s profile, the satin fall of his hair. Draco’s throat bobs, he shakes his head. Harry takes a breath. “Do you know how long we’ve been together?”

“I know you love me, Harry,” Draco says. A small, sure smile accompanies Draco’s words, filling Harry’s lungs with something sweet. “I’ve got another year.”

“A year and three days, actually,” Harry says. He releases Draco’s hand and tugs at the waist of his towel, pulling it open. “But reading that…” He swallows, and makes himself remember Draco new in his arms, confessing to being afraid for Harry; he makes himself remember Draco’s declaration of faith, and how that had felt. “It was… bad, Draco. I can’t— I can’t feel like that, when I’m on an assignment, and you wouldn’t want me to.” 

“Yes, I gathered that, too,” Draco says. He nods in the direction of the desk under the window. “You got an Owl from Hermione while you were in the shower. A sheaf of paperwork and a note; she’s… not pleased.”

That’ll worry Harry later, probably. He pushes the thought aside and says the thing he’s never said before: “You owe me, Draco. And I want to collect.” 

Draco doesn’t even seem surprised. He merely nods, still looking down at their joined hands, and then his gaze slices to Harry’s, as silver and serious as a brandished blade. “How much danger did you put yourself in to get home?”

“More than I have since I promised you I’d be careful,” Harry admits. “And… maybe less. I’m a lot better at my job than I was in my twenties.” 

“I thought so,” Draco says. “You were dead for nearly five minutes, that night Ron brought you in. It felt like an eternity.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Draco puts a hand to his cheek and says, “Tell me what it was like for you.”.

*

_King’s Cross again — bright, misty, clean. Empty. Harry looked around, curious but in no hurry to find out anything in particular, and in the distance saw a dark-robed figure coming towards him. He sat down on a bench and waited. Behind him, he could hear several overlapping voices he didn’t recognise, and one quiet, frantic voice he did, but when he turned to look, there was no one there. The whistle of a train sounded in the distance, down the tracks. He couldn’t see it yet, but it was coming._

_“Potter,” Snape said._

_“Severus,” Harry said, and smiled when Snape scowled. “You’re my welcome party?”_

_“So it would seem,” Snape said._

_“Why didn’t they send Professor Dumbledore this time?”_

_“Do you think,” Snape said, voice dripping with distaste, “that I am privy to such information? I am sent where I am sent, I do not need to like it any more than you do.”_

_“I don’t mind it’s you,” Harry said, surprised to find he didn’t. “I just wondered.”_

_“Ah, yes, that zeal for knowledge you’ve always had.” Snape lifted his dark eyes to the glowing mist above them. “Perhaps there was a consensus that you might be willing to listen to me for once.” He sighed, then dropped his gaze to Harry again. “Not that I myself hold out any hope.”_

_“You can quit it, you know,” Harry said, unoffended._

_“Thank you,” Snape clipped out with, in Harry’s opinion, rather an overabundance of offence. “What, may I enquire, am I ‘quitting’?”_

_“You loved my mum, and protected me for years; you saved my life,” Harry said. “I’m sure if you try, you can quit being an absolute arsehole to me for a few minutes.”_

_Snape narrowed his eyes. “Ah, but that’s perhaps the only enjoyment I’ll receive from this assignment,” he said. “Do not presume, Potter, that the duties I upheld out of loyalty to others were in any way but peripherally about you, please.”_

_He looked just the same as he always had — dark and bitter and contemptuous — and still smelled of potions smoke. But his lank hair looked clean for once, and the set of his shoulders under his robes no longer vibrated tension._

_Harry shrugged and said, “Hate me all you like. But, you know, thanks for… not being totally evil, I suppose?”_

_“Yes, well,” Snape said grudgingly, and didn’t go on._

_“So what message do you have for me?”_

_“I’m a guide, Potter, not a courier.” Snape gestured to the train tracks and, on cue, the whistle sounded again, closer. “But if there were something to discuss, I believe you would already know it.”_

_The sound of talking behind him faded, then burst out again, clamouring, harsh, underscored by the choking hesitation of held-back tears in one particular voice:_

_“Draco,” Harry said, and turned once more, getting disturbed by the emptiness of the platform. “Draco’s…” He felt it, then, the edges of a thought but — physically. Like the drift of a curtain, fluttering in an open-windowed breeze, against his skin. “He’s trying to Heal me.”_

_“He is doing his job, yes.”_

_“No.” Harry reached for those edges, pulled the curtain open. “It— It’s more than that to him, isn’t it? More than just… caring.” He looked up at Snape. “He loves me, doesn’t he?”_

_Snape stared at him, black eyes cold, upper lip curled back. “I also cannot claim to be privy to the secrets of Draco Malfoy’s heart, nor have I ever had any wish to—” He jerked, a small, unpleasant flicker twisting his face, and didn’t speak for several seconds. Looking at him, Harry wasn’t sure he even could. But at length, Snape took a breath and, in a tone that made it clear how little he wanted to say anything, said, “Yes. Draco loves you. He understands there exists a certain compatibility between the two of you, and has always wanted whatever measures of yourself you were willing to allot for him. Though he was not aware of doing so for several years, he has, in fact, spent more than half his life shaping himself around your perception of him — insofar as his circumstances dictated he could.”_

_A sudden rush of cold flooded through Harry’s veins. “You don’t— Are you saying I could have changed his life? That because I didn’t shake his hand—?”_

_Snape pinched the bridge of his nose exasperatedly, but his voice was simply… tired. “Draco made choices in his youth that, we can safely assume, like mine, had very little to do with you directly — despite what your ego would like you to believe. His choices were costly, and for the last six years he has been attempting to rectify the imbalance those choices have wrought. Though he has no belief that can ever be accomplished, he wakes every day to try, and this is where you do perhaps factor in. He did not think the two of you might ever become friends, and indeed you likely wouldn’t have if he—”_

_“Christ,” Harry muttered, and Snape glared at him._

_“He would like to continue being a better man for you,” he said flatly. “He has surrounded himself with good influences and considers you one of them. He loves you, yes, but it does not matter to him whether you share those feelings. It never has, and it never will. That is the truth for some people.”_

“The train started rolling in, then,” Harry says, stretched comfortably atop Draco’s body. Draco doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, other than to return the kiss Harry dips his head to take. Harry lets it linger until the desire pooled in his stomach begins to heat, and then lifts up. “‘But,’ Snape said, and… and _looked_ at me, ‘that compatibility I spoke of is rare, no matter the form it ultimately takes. So were I in your position, Potter, I would perhaps search my feelings for any latent need to explore it, before you board the train.’” 

Panting softly under Harry, Draco swallows hard, and Harry brings up his hand to trace the line of his brow and the crow’s feet just beginning to appear outside his eyes. 

Laugh lines, people call them, smile lines. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time Harry didn’t know how to laugh with Draco, or how to make him smile. The knowledge that, over the years, even certain things about Draco’s face have been shaped by Harry, feels unspeakably precious. 

Draco blinks at him, slow and heavy, eyes veiled. They’re both hard, but neither of them seek any sort of gratification yet; they’ve learned how to savour their arousal, the way Harry thinks only longtime lovers might ever truly be able to appreciate.

“I didn’t need to,” Harry says, closing his eyes for a beat when Draco reaches up to drift his hands down Harry’s spine. “Search my feelings. I didn’t even need to. I knew, then. Just — seeing how you felt, it reshaped _me,_ and understanding of my own feelings, and the way I viewed yours. It felt like those first nine years between us were just… points on a map, hoping we might end up in the same place. And I couldn’t get on a train bound for anywhere you wouldn’t be.”

Harry can’t bring himself to confess what the implication behind Snape’s speech had _felt_ like, every time Harry thought of it in retrospect; it would be pure conjecture on his part, and he’s not even sure if he believes in soulmates, really. But as Draco scans his face, Harry thinks he might see the suspicion living there — or, more accurately, might understand what he’s seeing for the first time — because Draco inhales for a long moment, and then his complexion pinks up abruptly, and he blinks twice before laughing softly and shaking his head. 

They’re quiet for a moment. Then Draco says, “And did he— Did he say whether it was possible? For me to fix things?” 

Harry hesitates. His memory of that conversation hasn’t dulled in the years since, and he remembers the hard mask covering the regret on Snape’s face clearly; it had been obvious his train had not taken him somewhere entirely peaceful, but Harry hadn’t been able to resist asking on Draco’s behalf.

_“Can he? Restore the balance?”_

_Snape turned in the distance, but his voice rang out as though he was still standing next to Harry._

_“That, I cannot predict,” he said. “I can only say that the search for redemption is a long, difficult journey which requires a true understanding of both sorrow and joy. I can only say that some of us will still feel its burden long after we leave the mortal coil. I can only say — I believe Draco Malfoy has grown into a far better man than I ever did,” he said, and vanished in the hazy plumes of smoke billowing from the train that had just slowed to a stop._

“He said you would,” Harry says, confident in the truth behind his lie. “He said that because you cared so much, he had no doubt.”

Draco tilts him a wry, knowing smile. “That,” he clicks his tongue, “sounds absolutely nothing like him.”

“Can we focus on the part where I came back to you from a train station between life and death?” Harry says, muffling his chagrin with a laugh dropped against Draco’s shoulder. “Be moved by that for a few minutes, or at least impressed? What do you want from me?” 

“Make love to me,” Draco says, and Harry brings up his head.

Draco’s never called it that, before. Not once in fourteen years.

Shuddering with relief, Harry kisses him, and again, and again because he can’t stop, and at some point shifts into the delectable process of taking Draco apart: guiding Draco onto his stomach, tracing long licks down the deep indent of Draco’s spine. He suckles sharp bruises to the surface of Draco’s skin on the sensitive insides of his thighs; he tongues and sucks over Draco’s hanging bollocks; he strokes Draco’s drooling cock through the gap in his legs. Then he eats Draco, unhurriedly, until Draco’s rim softens under the massage of Harry’s lips and tongue, clenching and unclenching his body’s anticipation against Harry’s mouth, his groans spilling into the mattress, above. Rising to murmur praise into Draco’s ear, Harry sinks his fingers inside him, and watches the burn of Draco’s flush slowly cover his back. 

Harry fingers him deep, this man who taught him how deep love can go; he brings Draco near to climax with the sure, twisting pump of his touch, and lets himself say all of the things he’s been waiting years to say: _You make me laugh like no one else, you’re the cleverest person I know, the most beautiful, I will love you forever, there’s nothing I would trade for you, nothing, no other life I would have wanted to live if it meant not having this._ And Draco moans and presses his hand to the headboard, knuckles turning white as he grips it, and turns to Harry with blind, needy kisses, desperately digging his teeth into Harry’s lower lip. He gasps, _More, Harry, please more_ , and, aching, Harry says, _You are the best person I know, and I love— every— single— part— of you._

Draco comes with a sob, cock pulsing untouched, babbling frantic and hoarse before he’s even finished, _Please, fuck me, I can come again, I know it,_ and even though their refractory periods have slowed, Harry believes him. He pulls out his fingers, turns Draco around, and takes the time — they have _so much time_ — bending Draco’s body to his will, turning Draco into a wreck of shivering limbs, and coaxes Draco’s cock stiff again with his mouth, his hands. He presses Draco back, pushes inside him, and fucks him slow, a reiteration of his feelings, so long the only way Draco could accept them outright. But this time Harry does it with a chant falling from his lips to Draco’s, a swirl of breath in the space between their kisses: _I love you, I love you, I love you…_

Spent, later, Draco makes a sound of displeasure when Harry pulls out. He wakes enough to shift onto his stomach again, and sighs when Harry murmurs a spell to clean them both. 

(Not too much. Not from the inside out. Harry likes the shine of his own come, low in the cleft of Draco’s buttocks, too much; likes the look of it, the tacky, slippery feel as he rolls back onto Draco, fitting himself along Draco's back.) 

“I’m going to write a letter to the owners of the _Prophet_ ,” Harry says. “I’m going to write them a letter telling them that I am Harry Potter, and that I’m prepared to use every ounce of power and influence at my fingertips to close their doors permanently if they don’t make an immediate retraction and apologise for their harassment. I think, because we’ve left it so long, they’ve let themselves forget what I can do.”

“Harry…” Draco says, and Harry tenses. He’s willing to argue over it but doesn’t want to, not when this whole morning has felt like unwrapping a gift he’s been waiting years to open. But Draco doesn’t object; he just yawns and shifts a bit to more comfortably bear Harry’s weight, his cheek resting against their messy duvet. They’ve ended up with their heads at the foot of the bed, and Draco’s hair hangs off the edge; it’s dried into the slippery-soft waves he refuses to acknowledge having, the ones he usually charms straight. He says,“You should mention how wealthy we are, while you’re at it, it might help to remind them we could start our own newspaper and put them out of business without making a dent in our vaults.” He pauses, and — with a bit of a grumble to his voice — adds, “Bloody rotters. Weve been together fourteen fucking years, you'd think they might get a clue. I suppose, worst case scenario, I could Owl mother for a Dark spell suggestion and have a spot of fun with them.”

“You’re married to the Head Auror of the DMLE,” Harry says, hiding his amusement with a stern look, “you can’t say that sort of thing.”

“Or you’ll do what?” Draco retorts, gaze sliding sideways to him. “You’re mad about me, _insanely_ in love, remember? You rejected _death_ for your love of me, you love me _so much_ , you can’t expect me to think you’d—”

Laughing, Harry pushes up slightly on his elbow and assesses Draco’s face. He drinks in the smile Draco’s biting down on, the warm flush to his cheeks, the contentment in his pale eyes. 

“I’d never,” Harry says. “No, you’re right.”

The humour on Draco's face fades. “Harry?”

“Yeah, love?”

“How?” Draco asks, a falter to his voice. “I know that you do, but— How? After everything that came before, and— still. How can you?”

The question takes Harry’s breath away. There are so many answers, he doesn’t even know how to pick from them: Draco’s talent, his dedication, his loyalty. The flowers on their side cabinet, the feel of his magic issuing from Harry’s wand, his lean, tall form twirling Harry in the kitchen; all of Draco’s sharp edges, and how much light there is inside him, for someone who carries the capacity for such darkness. There are so many reasons Harry could cite.

Instead, he leans down, and brushes a kiss against the high line of Draco’s cheekbone — another against the soft hair at Draco’s nape. 

“Like this, if you’ll let me,” Harry says simply, and watches the curl of Draco’s smile return. “Exactly like this, for the rest of our lives — and if I’m able, even better, after.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are lovely. 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://bixgirl1.tumblr.com)! *waves*
> 
> (And so is [slytherco](https://slytherco.tumblr.com)!)


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